I want to take my lettings agent to court. Do I have a case?

Guest101

saajan_12 wrote: »

The repairs were only expected to take ~3 months, presumably lless than the length of the contract.

If the property was truly uninhabitable for a short period, the OP would still need to pay rent as usual, but the LL would have to rehouse the tenants and cover any moving expenses etc until the original property was ready.

It appears that the OP and landlord have instead mutually surrendered the tenancy.

Indeed, as the rehousing may be worse than the original accommodation.

flora55

Well maybe this is why the landlord was so keen to give us back the rent we had already paid for April because then he wouldn't be responsible anymore. There wasn't really any discussion he just said he was refunding the rent we had paid. Then when the building company confirmed it would be at least 2 or 3 months he gave us the option of moving back in when it was ready or moving out permanently. we did try to find alternative accommodation but it was difficult because we didn;t know exactly how long the repairs would take.

Oh well. Lesson learned.

Guest101

flora55 wrote: »

Well maybe this is why the landlord was so keen to give us back the rent we had already paid for April because then he wouldn't be responsible anymore. - That's not that simple. He would have claimed any overage from the insurers. There wasn't really any discussion he just said he was refunding the rent we had paid. Then when the building company confirmed it would be at least 2 or 3 months he gave us the option of moving back in when it was ready or moving out permanently. - Probably not aware of the full implications or thought the contract was frustrated, which to be fair seems realistic. we did try to find alternative accommodation but it was difficult because we didn;t know exactly how long the repairs would take. - that's fair enough.

Oh well. Lesson learned.

No-one is at fault here, these things happen. You can make a claime against the insurers for any losses

flora55

Thanks, but whose insurance should I try and claim against? The landlords? Or the flats where the flood came from? I'm not sure they would pay out for agency fees as I paid them prior to the flood happening although maybe they could pay for the cost of hiring a van t move all our stuff. Thank you!

Guest101

flora55 wrote: »

Thanks, but whose insurance should I try and claim against? The landlords? Or the flats where the flood came from? I'm not sure they would pay out for agency fees as I paid them prior to the flood happening although maybe they could pay for the cost of hiring a van t move all our stuff. Thank you!

The fees are gone. You wont get them back. Just like you wouldn't get back the fee for a DBS check for a job.


You claim back costs / loss as a result of the leak which should put you back to the position immediately prior to the incident.


So moving costs, new fees you paid, damage to property, hotel costs etc.


You had to minimise your loss, so you cant claim for 2 months in a hotel, but you could for a week or two whilst you found somewhere new.


The insurers of the persons or entity which caused the damage.

flora55

Really? That would be great if we could claim from their insurance. We did ask them already but they said their insurance was only for damage to the building and not anything else but I'll ask again and see what they say. The leak was not through negligence though, a pipe burst which was not their fault.

Pixie5740

saajan_12 wrote: »

The repairs were only expected to take ~3 months, presumably lless than the length of the contract.

If the property was truly uninhabitable for a short period, the OP would still need to pay rent as usual, but the LL would have to rehouse the tenants and cover any moving expenses etc until the original property was ready.

It appears that the OP and landlord have instead mutually surrendered the tenancy.

The landlord wouldn't have had to re-house the OP. Landlords have no duty duty to re-house a tenant after a disaster such as fire or flood. The local authority does though if someone presents themselves as homeless with no other suitable accommodation. The tenant would have to keep paying the rent.

Whether the landlord must pay for the costs of re-housing a tenant albeit temporarily will depend on whether the landlord is in breach of his repairing obligations or not and whether the disaster was the landlord's fault. In this case it sounds as though the landlord was not at fault.

It's all a bit moot anyway since an early surrender was agreed.

Pixie5740

flora55 wrote: »

Really? That would be great if we could claim from their insurance. We did ask them already but they said their insurance was only for damage to the building and not anything else but I'll ask again and see what they say. The leak was not through negligence though, a pipe burst which was not their fault.

You wouldn't be making a claim against anyone's insurance you would be trying to make a claim against the landlord and then he would try and recoup the money from his insurer if you win and that's a big if. Tenants can successfully sue their landlords for the inconvenience of having to move because of repairs/fire/flood if the repairs/fire/flood resulted from the landlord's failure to carry out maintenance/repairs in the property but that doesn't seem to be what happened in your case.

Shelter: Housing disrepair check if you can make a claim.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. By all means ask your landlord for the money but if it goes as far as court don't expect it to be a slam dunk. I wouldn't put money on you winning.

Pixie5740

jondav wrote: »

Why are you taking issue with my post?

Perhaps because you said:

jondav wrote: »

Some people on here will ALWAYS say "forget it, you have no case" and I can't quote how many times, but in some cases they are very definitely wrong.

And were then unable to provide any examples or evidence other than a very weak, "it happened to me once," and that was it.

There are a lot of very knowledgable people on this board who give up their time to try and help people and coming out with statement like yours without anything to back it up is disingenuous.

jondav wrote: »

All I said to the OP was to do some research elsewhere aswell as here before moving forward.....why has that got your goat so much?

It's general good advice to research any matter as much as possible before making a decision.

Why not post that on every thread then? Why keep asking questions on the forum if you don't trust the advice being given?

pinkshoes

As you have agreed to early surrender of the tenancy, then not a lot can now be done.

You are entitled to your checkout fee back.

The usual route to take would have been to make the LL pay for alternative accommodation whilst the property was fixed, then move back in. A friend of mine had the exact same scenario and the LL paid for a hotel for 2 months whilst the damage was repaired.